BNB Chain Pursues Legal Action Against Ex-Employee Over Memecoin Launched From Tutorial Wallet

BNB Chain says it is taking legal action against a former employee who allegedly used a wallet originally created for a company tutorial to launch a new memecoin called Asteroid Shiba, or ASTEROID. In a statement posted Saturday, BNB Chain said the individual retained unauthorized access to the wallet’s seed phrase and is no longer with the company as a result of the incident. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao called the former employee “basically a scammer” and urged users to stay cautious.

Wallet Traces Back to 2025 Tutorial

The wallet in question was first used in February 2025 to launch a test token called TST for a BNB Chain video tutorial. That token unexpectedly gained speculative traction after the video briefly revealed its name, with its market cap climbing above $50 million despite official statements clarifying no endorsement from Binance or BNB Chain. The team later deleted the video and the private key tied to the creator wallet, but the former employee allegedly kept access through the seed phrase.

Analytics Firm Flags Large Token Profits

Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported that four wallets linked to the former employee purchased nearly 80% of ASTEROID’s total supply for about $10,000, later selling most of those tokens for roughly $638,000, generating an estimated $628,000 profit. The Block noted it could not independently verify Lookonchain’s claim that the wallets belonged to the former employee. The new token also appears to have copied the name of an existing, unrelated Asteroid Shiba project, whose team said it had no connection to the copycat token.